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<h3><b>Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of
"Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting
Activists</b></h3><font size=3>Saturday 11 December 2010<br>
<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists?print">
<br>
by: Michael Deutsch, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis</a><br>
<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists" eudora="autourl">
http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists<br>
<br>
</a>In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and
antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following
the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a
grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar
and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions,
the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court's 6-3
opinion last June in <i>Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project</i>, which
decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy
"coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a
foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist"
was a crime. <br><br>
The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the
federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political
organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist
Organization (FRSO), of providing "material support" through
their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC
"threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic
interests," a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both
groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). <br><br>
In 1996, Congress made it a crime - then punishable by 10 years, which
was later increased to 15 years - to anyone in the US who provides
"material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization
or attempts or conspires to do so." The present statute defines
"material support or resources" as:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>... any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including
currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging,
training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation
or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal
substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or
religious materials.<br><br>
</dl>In the Humanitarian Law Project</i> case, human rights workers
wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent
Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which
sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and
international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from
the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses
by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were
designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in
which the evidence is heard secretly.<br><br>
Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law
Project's speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court
nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a
whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any
support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal
under the law since it "frees up other resources within the
organization that may be put to violent ends," and also helps lend
"legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the
majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence,
further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to
"intimidate, harass or destruct" its adversaries, and that even
peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further
attacks. Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes efforts by independent
groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with
designated FTOs.<br><br>
The Court distinguishes what it refers to as "independent
advocacy," which it finds is not prohibited by the statute, from
"advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a
foreign terrorist organization," which is, for the first time, found
to be a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating where
independent advocacy becomes impermissible coordination is left open and
vague.<br><br>
Seizing on this overbroad definition of "material support," the
US government is now moving in on political groups and activists who are
clearly exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by vocally opposing
the government's branding of foreign liberation movements as terrorist
and supporting their struggles against US-backed repressive regimes and
illegal occupations.<br><br>
Under the new definition of "material support," the efforts of
President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate
with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah,
could well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed
articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other designated groups by The
New York Times or The Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs by
human rights attorneys arguing against a group's terrorist designation or
the statute itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, the first
targets of this draconian expansion of the material support law will not
be a former president or the establishment media, but members of a
Marxist organization who are vocal opponents of the governments of Israel
and Colombia and the US policies supporting these repressive
governments.<br><br>
In his foreword to Nelson Mandela's recent autobiography
"Conversations with Myself," President Obama wrote that
"Mandela's sacrifice was so great that it called upon people
everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. … The first
time I became politically active was during my college years, when I
joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end
apartheid in South Africa." At the time of Mr. Obama's First
Amendment advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the African National
Congress (ANC) were denounced as terrorist by the US government. If the
"material support" law had been in effect back then, Mr. Obama
would have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It is ironic -
and the height of hypocrisy - that this same man who speaks with such
reverence for Mr. Mandela and recalls his own support for the struggle
against apartheid now allows the Justice Department under his command to
criminalize similar First Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid
and repressive foreign governments.<br><br>
<br><br>
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